Judge rules against Libertarians

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published
8:00 pm EDT, Wednesday, October 22, 2008

BRIDGEPORT - Libertarian Party officials are conferring with their lawyers Thursday to decide if they should appeal U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall's oral ruling that keeps their candidates for president and vice president off Connecticut's November ballot.

"We're going to have to make a decision real quick," said Andrew Rule, a local party official.

Hall told both sides of the argument that arrangements were made to electronically transfer her ruling to the clerk's office at the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.

Following a nearly two-hour hearing Thursday afternoon, Hall ruled the Libertarians waited too long to file their request, and if she did grant it, it would cause confusion, unreasonable demands and expenses for the state.

The Libertarians claim various registrars of voters across the state improperly excluded at least 357 signatures that would have given them the 7,500 needed to put the names of Robert Barr and Wayne A. Root, their candidates for president and vice president, on the ballot.

The Libertarians submitted 12,600 signatures, but 5,400 were excluded for various reasons, leaving them with only 7,218 valid ones - 282 short of the number needed.

"If I granted their motion, it would require reprinting 2 million ballots, reprogramming computer cards, and then redistributing the 833 different forms of ballots and computer cards to the 169 municipalities," the judge ruled from the bench.

"Then the ballots and the cards would have to be tested. It just couldn't be done ... by Nov. 4."

Hall also said distribution and returns of the four different categories of absentee ballots have begun. Adding another name to the paper ballot would create confusion, she said.

She further told the party's lawyer he should have filed the injunction request with the suit Oct. 1, or at least advised her during an Oct. 8 telephone conference call that they intended to do so.

"Nothing before the court explains why they waited until 4 p.m. Oct. 17 to file their motion," Hall ruled. "The court was available. If I had a motion, I could have acted sooner."

Following Hall's ruling, Rule said it was a time-consuming process for him to determine which names were excluded improperly from the petition list.

"I did not want to put my name on something unless I was certain it was correct. They'd cook me on the stand," he said, referring to the three assistant attorney generals in the courtroom.

Gary Sinawski, a Brooklyn, N.Y. lawyer who represents the Libertarians, said one of the problems in Connecticut is the Aug. 6 deadline to file the petitions and Sept. 15 date for the Secretary of the State to decide which petition candidates will appear on the ballots.

"A lot of the deadlines and dates are predicated on the more primitive voting systems," he said. "That has to be reformed. If Connecticut was still using the voting machine, I believe there would be time to put the candidates on."